Help Will Always Be Given
by izasherrie
Summary: Hogwarts, Christmas 1944. The Muggle world knows of a Christmas marked by rations. Hogwarts students know it's time to get cracking on O.W.L studies. One-Shot of OC at risk of failing transfiguration and relunctantly accepting remedial transfiguration lessons from an Albus Dumbledore before he defeated Grindelwald. Should be canon and history compliant.


It was common knowledge for all of Hogwarts' students that O.W.L.s were incredibly strenuous to prepare for. Fifth year students could no longer be found idly chatting in the corridors or chasing each other through Hogsmeade, washing down the week's lectures with a few pints of butterbeer. With the expectation of the occasional slacker such as Gryffindor's Finn Mosely who thought of such stress and anxiety as below him, everyone was cramming, comparing, and preparing.

The very dedicated chose to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas break as well, two weeks being too precious to spend away from the library and peer pressure to study. As such Gertrude Rosenbaum was particularly fretful of the exams in 143 days time. She appreciated how the castle had emptied over Christmas, as the library was less crammed and she had the necessary space to prop up her books during meal times. Overall, Gertrude was quite pleased with her progress and feeling rather confident about the material of her first three years of schooling. But her fourth year contained some rather embarrassing gaps. It was only natural, Getrude rationalized, the last school year had been anything but ordinary, and then they had found Myrtle Warren dead in the bathroom. Talks of the school shutting down and fear of being killed in the corridor despite being a Slytherin lingered and had made exams seem trivial in comparison.

In the end, the school had not shut down and Professor Dippet had not announced any new regulations. So here she was, stuck with material she had not understood the first time around. She blamed Dippet. And Dumbledore. And Slughorn. They should have not allowed themselves to be distracted by the Chamber of Secrets business, it had been swiftly resolved thanks to Tom. Under normal circumstances she would have asked her house prefect to tutor her over the holidays, but this was the first time that Gertrud could recall where Tom had abstained from staying at the castle, leaving her with no one to ask. She supposed she would do well in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, and Potions with a bit of practice. But Transfiguration eluded her. No matter how hard Gertrude tried, she could not transfigure animals or objects into animals. The books in the library were of no substantial help either - the books overcomplicated, or oversimplified, but never just explained.

A week into her Christmas break Gertrude woke up, fully aware that only 137 days separated her from O.W.L.s ; if she wanted a shot at a promising apprenticeship her Transfiguration skills needed to be up to scratch. Owning up to the ugly truth that they simply were not took more out of her than she cared to admit. Tucking her book "Demystifying Transfiguration - Practical Hints for the Struggling Student" by Zelma Gristhrone under her arm she headed for the Great Hall. The usual four tables had been pushed together and the teachers had joined the handful of students remaining. Gertrude's initial irritation and confusion about the new arrangement remained throughout breakfast. Dippet's proclamation of "Merry Christmas" flew right over her head as she opened her book against a basket of rolls, mindful that no one could read the title. "Honestly." she murmured darkly to herself "who has time to bother with Christmas." In her mind, the only relevant calendar was one that measured time to O.W.L.s. She flicked the page with a movement of her finger. Tom had shown some of the Slytherins how to do it; strictly speaking it was not wandless magic. It was a charm on the book he had invented to make it look like the caster was capable of wandless magic. Gertrude mainly thought is was practical for mealtimes when her hands were occupied sparingly picking at her toast.

"That's quite a bit of impressive magic, Miss Rosenbaum." Dumbledore said, his blue eyes twinkling mischievously "5 points to Slytherin." Gertrude had not even noticed that he had sat down across from her. "Thank you." she dropped eye contact and continued reading on. Unfortunately, the professor did not drop the conversation. "You're always reading something at mealtimes I've noticed. What has you so engrossed this time?"

"O.W.L. preparations, sir."

"Ah yes, you would be preparing for those now. How foolish of me. Is everything going to plan?" Gertrude thought that he should know that she was a hopeless case in Transfiguration, after all he had just handed her back an essay with a P. But Dumbledore's voice betrayed no hint of maliciousness. "Within reason, of course. We still have 137 days after all." He chuckled "I'm certain you're using them wisely. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a few essays to read over in my office. Merry Christmas to you." He left and Gertrude returned to her book.

The afternoon saw no notable improvements of her Transfiguration. Gristhorne's book had been cast into a dusty corner of the common room while Gertrude tried to transform a teacup into a mouse. All she had accomplished thus far was turning the mouse canary yellow and she had no idea how to reverse it, because supposedly the reversal of wayward transfigurations was a N.E.W.T. subject. She kicked the couch in frustration. She was going to fail her O.W.L.s, forced to withdraw, without an education, without a wand, and without prospects. Everything depended on a perfect test, her entire ambitions. Once again she cursed Dumbledore and Dippet and their lax standards during last year's crisis. Then she paused. She specifically remembered Dumbledore mentioning at breakfast that he would be in his office grading essays. Gertrude was determined to give him a piece of her mind and stormed out of the room, collecting the useless Transfiguration book so she could return it to the library. Going twice would be a waste of studying time and she really could not spare any.

Slightly out of breath, but still teeming with anger she knocked on the door to her Transfiguration professor's office. The door swung open and she saw the man at his desk with stacks of parchment. "Ah Miss Rosenbaum, what brings you here this afternoon?" he asked "Your lack of focus on classes during last year. Far too occupied with the doings of that spider." she spat. "Now we O.W.L. students need to teach the material to ourselves, because of course the board doesn't care that we weren't taught properly, let alone the practical portion of the exam, where half the spells weren't even practiced, because no, we had to write essays on them. But essays do not substitute a practical approach. It's all good for the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs because their classes were covered by Professor Marchbanks, who saw herself unable to do the same for the seperate Slytherin slot because the monster was, of course, the students' fault while you were off galvanting across Europe doing Merlin-knows-what looking for Grindelwald and setting essays. And there's no one else in my house who cares about a good Transfiguration O.W.L. so it's not like I can ask my housemates for help..." She continued her rant for quite a few minutes, all while Dumbledore calmly looked at her and waited for her to finish. When she finally did her shoulders sagged somewhat from expressing all the tension she had pent-up since the first day of term. "Are you finished, Miss Rosenbaum?" Only then did she realize that she had just yelled at teacher. She stammered out an apology, thoroughly ashamed of having displayed her exam anxiety quite so openly, but her teacher surprised her "I assume that this outburst was nothing more than caused by a combination of pre-exam nerves and lack of a suitable breakfast and lunch and see no reason to dwell on it. As it happens I lost track of time and only had a few bites of lunch as well, so perhaps a late lunch is in order - would you care to join me?" Although Dumbledore was sure to keep his tone light, it was clear to Gertrude that refusing this invitation would be to refuse the olive branch the professor had just waved. She nodded her assent and took a seat across from the professor's desk. With a wave of his wand the papers flew neatly stacked to the windowsill behind him and with another wave a decent lunch selection appeared. Gertrude's stomach grumbled, but she felt it would be rude to reach for the food first. Instead she preferred to wait out the uncomfortable silence that spread across the room until Dumbledore started. The meal provided an excellent excuse to continue the silence, only over tea afterwards did Gertrude finally ask something "Professor, where did you conjure the food from? I thought that -"

" - that food is one of the items that can't be conjured from Gamp's Law? You would be correct, Miss Rosenbaum. This wasn't a conjuring, but rather a signal to the house elves to send some food to the office rather than the Great Hall." She nodded, at least she had heard of Gamp's Law before, even if she had not quite understood the arithmetic proof provided. She continued sipping her tea, when Dumbledore took charge of the conversation. "Forgive me for asking, but between your expressed frustration at your OWL preparation and increasingly poor grades in your Transfiguration homework, are there any questions you have about Transfiguration?" He had provided her with a window to ask without having to admit just how rotten her knowledge was. Gertrude's pride got the better of her and she shook her head "It's not that. I've just been distracted recently by what has been going on around us. Schoolwork seemed less important." Dumbledore looked at her curiously, but remained silent. Feeling pressured to provide more information "Over break my parents helped my a bit with the other subjects to bridge any gaps I may have had. But Transfiguration isn't really taught at Durmstrang so they couldn't help me." He nodded "Yes, Durmstrang never had the academic patience for intense Transfigurations as I recall. Your parents were both taught there?" she nodded and his eyebrows raised "I assumed with your surname they'd have been educated in Switzerland."

"We're from Poland, originally. Well..." she paused "I suppose it's Germany now." If her professor had an opinion on the matter, he declined to share it.

When she returned to her dormitory she realized that she had forgotten her book in Professor Dumbledore's office.

The next morning at breakfast there were two surprises waiting for Gertrude Rosenbaum. The tables were still annoyingly pushed together and the staff still intermingled with the students. But she could not help but notice a pastry amongst the selection that most certainly had not been part of the usual Hogwarts Christmas fare the past years. Instead, it was the type of baked good that she was familiar with from Christmases spent with her grandparents. She sat next to some first year Ravenclaw who looked utterly incredulous at the amount of food present, she had noticed the looks in several lower year students in fact. "Arent they rationing?" he asked her. "Rationing? Why would -" the question died on her tongue as she recalled just what was going on the muggle world. A white lie, perhaps, would not be amiss. After all, the boy would not hear about Gamp's Law for at least three more years. "Magic." The guilty expression on his face vanished as he piled his plate with food and took a hearty bite. Gertude helped herself to the Polish treat, which somewhat softened her otherwise unchristmas-like mood. Instead her neighbor chatted her ear off about all things magic and how impressive everything was to a first-year; she was rather proud of her self-constraint to not tell him off for bothering her when she realized that the boy was no longer talking to her but Dumbledore who sat across from them. It apparently had evolved into a demonstration of magic as Dumbledore was transfiguring candles into waxen mice and racing them across the table, much to the younger boy's delight and his colleague's annoyance. Gertrude noticed that Dippet was suppressing a laugh though. "Can you teach me how to do that, sir?" her neighbor asked, already pulling out his wand. Dumbledore acquiesced and began explaining "The spell pronunciation is 'Animens', nice and clear. Repeat it once and we'll cover the wand motion next."

"Animens"

"Excellent, Mr. Wilson. Moving on to the wand motion, you'll want to give it a quick twirl around the candle" Dumbledore said, summoning the mice back to him and reversing the transformation with a wave of his hand so that Richard Wilson had two lit candlesticks in front of him. Wandlessly, no less. "Go on, try it." he encouraged.

"Animens" Richard Wilson tried and gave an exaggerated twirl. The candles did not change at all for him. His face fell. "Not to worry. You'll wand to try saying the incantation and the wand motion at the same time." Dumbledore said. The ravenclaw nodded. "Animens!" The wax briefly clumped, but then reshaped itself back into candle form. "Why is it not working?" He asked Gertrude. Caught off-guard by the transfiguration question and completely out of her depth, she shrugged. "Beats me, my spells almost never worked on the first try. Try again." Dumbledore just sat there enjoying the exchange, but not commenting. "Animens!" Wilson tried again with the same result. "Professor, what am I doing wrong?"

"While not getting it on the third try is hardly something I would consider to be wrong for a first year. Are you visualizing the mouse you want to transform the candle into?" Wilson shook his head and Gertrude found herself unwillingly paying more attention. Dumbledore continued "Transfiguration is all about precise visualization as much as it is about wandwork and timing. You need to visualize what you want your object to become, and envision the process in your mind. Wax is an excellent starting point, it's soft and easily shapable. The end result you want is just a mouse, made out of wax, that moves. What parts would you need for that Mr. Wilson?" The boy stammered at being directly addressed, but caught himself "Well, four legs to move, and a head?"

"Do you really require a head for this particular endeavour - a waxen figure that walks magically?" Dumbledore pressed

"Well...I suppose not. Four legs for movement, and magical intent takes care of the direction."

"Well-reasoned. 5 points to Ravenclaw." Richard Wilson beamed. "Now, Mr. Wilson. Have another go - visualize the four legs for a start, and once you have the frame, with a bit of practice your constructs will have more detail."

"Animens!" Wilson's face scrunched up in concentration, but Gertrude noted with interest that the wax had indeed kept it's changed form. Granted, it looked like a ball with four remarkably flexible limbs crudely attached to it. Dumbledore inspected the figure "A solid attempt. I daresay it may be able to walk a few steps, if you please." Wilson jabbed his wand to the right and the wax ball started walking towards Gertrude's plate. It made it 2 steps and then the wax took back its candle form. "Well, it's progress." Wilson said, although it was clear that he was slightly dejected. Dumbledore just smiled "I see that it walked, but then you lost concentration. Maintaining constructs like these gets easier with practice. I practiced this spell with mice constructs; I daresay I would have slightly more difficulty doing it with any other form. I always find sketching them out to be helpful, making sure I know how the limbs are placed and the joints work. Just something to think about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm afraid there's still work for us teachers on Christmas Day. Mr. Wilson, I look forward to your progress. Ms. Rosenbaum, I believe you left a book in my office, it appears that I forgot to bring it down with me, I apologize"

That bat, it was his fault that she had been desperate enough to seek out that book in the first place. Gertrude knew that he had 'forgotten' on purpose, but years of her parents' insistence on good manners drove her to say "It's no trouble sir. If you have no objections, I would pick it up after lunch?" He nodded.

The unplanned transfiguration lesson had delayed her morning at great deal; to make up for lost time Gertrude shut herself inside the common room and revised the practical portion of Transfiguration. As always, the spells from the first three years of schooling, which mainly dealt with inanimate objects gave her little trouble. Transforming soup bowls into trophies, changing the color of metals , matchsticks into needles posed little trouble after a handful of earnest attempts. Out of curiosity how she would fare, Gertrude even tried her hand at the animens spell Richard Wilson had been taught this morning. To her frustration, her mice turned out rather well, so it was neither the wand movement, nor the visualisation component that gave her trouble when conjuring life-like forms. So why could she not do animal transfigurations with only 136 days to go to exams? She sank into the couch and shoved the wax mouse off the armrest. Parlour tricks would not get her the apprenticeship she wanted.

The door to Dumbledore's office was already open when Gertrude arrived. Evidently he had genuinely expected her to show up. "Ah. Miss Rosenbaum; I was beginning to worry you had forgotten."

"It's only early afternoon, professor."

"Is it, really? My watch told me it was already past three." She glanced at her own timepiece. Dumbledore was right, which meant that she had spent more time than scheduled wallowing. And missed lunch. She prayed the professor would not insist on another luncheon, she doubted she would be able to handle the stifling awkwardness a second time. Dumbledore did not, instead he handed her the book, eyes twinkling. "Interesting choice of reading for someone who has no questions." Gertrude hated how his voice was devoid of judgement, with its tone identical to how one would talk about the weather or recent Quidditch scores. Wrestling with her pride for a moment and deciding that she had already lost any shred of academic dignity she may have once possessed. "Sir, I do have a few questions." He looked at her and gave a slight nod to go on. "I don't struggle with inanimate transfiguration, but once we work with live animals, or try to transform something into a projection of an animal; it just doesn't work. All of the books I've consulted on the topic either refer to the arithmetic differences, which is far beyond what we've learnt so far, or just list the spells with no further details. Why is it such a leap?"

Dumbledore looked at her and Gertrude had the uncanny feeling that he was looking through her reasonably collected exterior and right into her soul, where the jumble of emotions and exam anxiety freely reigned, along with a couple of other thoughts that she tried to squash during the term. "I'd think the answer is apparent, wouldn't you Miss Rosenbaum?"

"Of course animate objects are more complex. But how do you visualize something you don't fully know or understand?"

"I gather you have looked at the proofs?"

"Superficially, sir." He looked taken aback, but nodded all the same "How much did you understand?"

"Perhaps a third?" Gertrude estimated, feeling that she should elaborate "Everything can be expressed arithmetically, I don't know by what system, but it can. Transfiguration is transforming different terms of a beginning state to an endstate. Some terms cannot be reduced, so they are either preserved in the original state, misshapenly inserted into the endstate, or in between state - though I didn't quite understand that one either."

"Well cited from Arithmetic Transformation. You have been busy. 5 points to Slytherin for persistence." Dumbledore gestured for her to have a seat again. "In short: animate transfiguration has more terms than inanimate. So there's generally more that can go wrong, since you're compressing them. Think of it as stuffing a towel through a very tight tube." Gertrude nodded. "But it doesn't help me understand where I'm going wrong in practical work. I cannot exactly visualize 21 different terms and their arithmetic components."

"What do you currently visualize?" It was a simple question, yet it threw Gertrude completely off-guard. "The end product. Like the books say."

"Ah. That's perhaps where your critique of my absence is well-justified, however ill-expressed it may have been. What you want to do is, in the timing it takes to complete the wand motion, think about how the transformation looks." Dumbledore gestured to a rather compact teapot on his desk. "This somewhat has the shape of a sitting duck, wouldn't you say?"

"Sure." Gertrude shrugged. She supposed that if one squinted the similarities were there, but Dumbledore was known for being a more eccentric teacher. "Miss Rosenbaum, kindly attempt to transform this teapot into an animal. At the moment I don't care what animal, for its markings. I want a projection of a living creature."

Gertrude thought. Dumbledore had given her a hint as to a practical form for the animal; but she could not visualize how the ceramic turned to feathers or the bill. The end result that she ended up sheepishly presenting was a muggle duck-shaped garden gnome that had been cursed with life. The proportions were off as well, so the duck could only support itself on one leg, rather than balancing on two. She cringed. "I'm sorry, I said I was rubbish at this..."

"Perhaps if you stopped convincing yourself that your magical talent is inadequate, you would find yourself more likely to suceed." Dumbledore said kindly. "That being said - honestly grading, this is perhaps enough to achieve a poor. But you'll do better next time." He gave an elaborate flourish with his wand and the ugly teapot returned. "Perhaps imagine the pot as being made of clay and then carve out the feathers and legs."

Her second duck was perhaps even more misshapen than the first and not for the first time since beginning her transfiguration revision Gertrude felt close to tears. But Dumbledore just reversed the process. "Again." he said calmly. Gertrude's third duck was at least identifiable as a duck, if still obviously carrying the markings of the teapot it had sprung from.

"Perhaps a small break, let the mind rest." Dumbledore suggested. Tea and something akin powdered materialized on the desk, and Gertrude again noted that it was not usual Hogwarts fare. A bite of the sweet and zesty good confirmed what she had already known in the back of her head; again a traditionally Polish sweet. It reminded her of family, and suddenly her appetite vanished to be replaced by a sudden onslaught of anxiety. She could tell her breathing was getting quicker, and she struggled to stay in her seat and take a sip of tea as if everything was alright. Her pastry sat on her plate, untouched after the first bite. Dumbledore noticed, "Are the pastries not to your liking? I can send for some different ones." She shook her head "No, they're fine, they just reminded me of something." She mentally counted down from five "It's fine now."

Dumbledore peered at her, but did not pry. "I remember my first Christmas truly apart from my family. It was somewhat bittersweet, I relished my new independence, but I also missed them greatly. I often wonder what I would do if I had another Christmas with them. In the end, it's best to be grateful for the holidays you did have together."

She nodded "We already celebrated in Slytherin; it was nice. Tom surprised me by organizing it." She could have sworn she saw the professor tense up at the mention of Riddle's name. He seemed to want to ask her something, but instead suggested continuing their lessons.

By evening Gertrude was capable of transforming the teapot into a perfectly acceptable duck and back again.

Boxing day saw another communal breakfast. Gertrude didn't pay it much mind, and propped up another revision book while all her tablemates were pulling apart Christmas crackers. She only looked up when she saw that a perfectly formed waxen mouse was occupying her next paragraph. Peering around for Professor Dumbledore, she realized that she could not make him out. Instead Richard Wilson was incessantly tugging at her robes. "What do you think?" he gestured at the mouse. "It's not quite wandless, but maybe I can get a few house points out of it?" She smiled at him. "Yeah, I reckon you could."


End file.
